Aching Need

Lyon's POV

The guard's words were still hanging in the air when I was already moving.

Three humans. And they were with cameras.

I didn't take anyone with me as I headed in the reported direction.

The moment I stepped out of the tree cover and into the open, all three of them froze. Young men, maybe early twenties. One had a camera around his neck. Another had his phone raised, recording. The third one was pointing a flashlight at my perimeter wall like he was on a school trip.

“Hunters?” Obsidian growled inside me.

No. Just idiots.

"You followed my truck," I said.

Nobody answered. The camera light was still blinking red.

"Put it down," I said quietly.

It came down fast.

I looked at all three of them, taking my time. I wasn't angry yet. Angry would come if they gave me a reason.

"This is private land. You're on it without permission. Whatever you thought you were going to find out here tonight, you didn't find it. Go home."

The tall one in the middle cleared his throat.

"We just wanted to know who—"

"You don't want to know anything," I said. "You want to get back in that car and drive until this road is a memory."

He shut up.

"If you come back," I added, "you won't leave. I'm not being dramatic. I'm telling you exactly what will happen."

They were already moving before I finished. The one with the phone tripped over his own feet getting to the car. I watched their headlights disappear down the road and then I stood there for a second in the quiet.

“Good,” Obsidian said, settling.

“Yeah. Good. Because I wasn't about to break the bones of those derelicts. For their own sakes.”8

I turned back toward the house.

Kendra was on the front steps.

Of course she was. She liked to place herself where I'd have to get past her.

"Were those humans?" she asked, following me inside before I could close the door.

"They're gone."

"Lyon, they had cameras." She was right on my heels, her voice getting louder with every step. "What if they recorded something? What if they go back and bring journalists? Police?"

"They won't. And we're not criminals and the world is not totally ignorant about us."

"You don't know that." She moved around me, planting herself in my path. "This is what happens when you bring a human into your house. One girl and suddenly we have strangers with flashlights crawling around our walls."

I stopped.

She kept going.

"I have been patient, Lyon. I have stayed quiet and kept this household running while you chase after some human doctor who doesn't even understand what she's doing. And now look. We're compromised. The pack is unsettled. The elders are already asking questions and I don't know what to tell them because you won't talk to me—"

"Kendra."

She paused.

"Don't mention Christie again," I said.

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Her name, her presence here, the fact that she's human, I don't want to hear any of it from you again."

Her mouth opened. "Lyon, that is completely—"

"The next time you bring her up," I said, "I'll pack your things myself and I'll tell every elder who arranged this match exactly why I did it. I won't listen to pleas."

The color left her face.

"You can't be serious."

"Do I sound like I'm joking?"

She stared at me. Her jaw was tight and her eyes were doing that thing they did when she was calculating her next move.

She didn't find one.

"Have a goodnight if you deserve it, Kendra," I said, and walked away.

“That felt oddly good, considering we're supposed to be marrying her, we should not be too excited to see her gone, right?” Obsidian asked.

When I didn't respond, he went on.

“Why are we still engaged to her anyway?”

Felt necessary, I corrected.

“Duty,” was my grim response.

I pushed open the door to my mother's room.

Christie was in the chair beside the bed, notebook on her knee, pen in her hand. She looked up the second I walked in.

"How is she?" I asked.

"Stable. Her temperature hasn't spiked again." She paused.

"You were gone a while."

"Handled something."

"I heard voices." She tilted her head. "Any trouble?”

I said nothing.

She watched me cross the room and stand at the foot of the bed, checking Nima's face.

"Lyon."

"Hmm."

"What's actually going on outside this house?"

I looked at her then. She had that expression again, the same one she'd worn when I first showed up at her pack and asked for her to go with me.

God. I wanted this woman. She didn't even understand my kind. She didn't know what I was or what I was capable of, yet every moment had me aching to get closer to her.

“Tell her,” Obsidian said.

Not yet.

"Get some rest, Doc," I said.

She didn't look away.

"I'm not tired," she said.